Statue of Franz Kafka - Prague, Czech Republic
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N 50° 05.409 E 014° 25.248
33U E 458568 N 5548814
Statue of Franz Kafka by Jaroslav Róna
Waymark Code: WM1645Z
Location: Hlavní město Praha, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/01/2022
Views: 8
The bronze sculpture by sculptor Jaroslav Róna commemorates one of the world's greatest writers, whose family lived in Dušní Street. It was unveiled on 4 December 2003. Its location is also symbolic, because the border between the Prague districts of Staré Mesto and Josefov runs in front of the sculpture and, moreover, three spiritual zones meet here - a synagogue, a Catholic and a Protestant church.
"Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include the short story "The Metamorphosis" and novels The Trial and The Castle. The term Kafkaesque has entered English to describe situations like those found in his writing.
Kafka was born into a middle-class German-speaking Czech Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today the capital of the Czech Republic.[7] He trained as a lawyer and after completing his legal education was employed full-time by an insurance company, forcing him to relegate writing to his spare time.
He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis. His work has influenced a vast range of writers, critics, artists, and philosophers during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Statue of Franz Kafka in Dušní Street (by Jaroslav Róna) – a two-figure sculpture consisting of two bodies – the lower massive figure is a hollow suit (jacket and trousers), and on its shoulders sits Franz Kafka himself. The memorial is inspired by Kafka’s short story Description of a Struggle.
This untraditional “equestrian” statue of bronze is 3.75 m high and weighs 800 kg. David Vávra is the co-creator of the architectural solution of the location of the statue. The creation of the statue was initiated by the Franz Kafka Society at the beginning of the 1990s.
It was unveiled in 2003 and in 2004 it was awarded the prize Grand Prix of the Community of Architects in the category Visual Artistic Work in architecture."
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